Vincent Valentine
by Sir Edward
Summary: A song fic about Vincent Valentine.  Godsmack's I Stand Alone.  [VincentxYuffie].  R&R if you please!


Vincent Valentine

**I've told you this once before you can't control me**

**If you try to take me down you're gonna break**

**I feel your every, nothing that you're doing for me**

**I'm keeping you out of me**

**You run away.**

Vincent Valentine lay strapped to a table, while Hojo puttered around his unconscious form, holding a scalpel in one hand, and a bottle of chloroform in the other.

"Well mister Valentine, you put up quite a struggle before I could subdue you. You must be proud of yourself." Hojo spat, as he dragged the surgical blade across Vincent's flesh.

Vincent made no answer, but Hojo continued to talk to him as if he would answer back.

"You sure do know how to make things difficult for yourself Vincent. I don't understand why one would put up a struggle, when one knows it to be completely useless. Your attempts to escape have all been foiled, and yet you continue to try and leave... Your determination and stubbornness is astounding even to me." Hojo licked his dry lips as he cut another gash into Vincent's skin, in preparation for his final experiment.

"You brought this upon yourself though mister Valentine... You should have known what was coming when you abandoned the Turks... You don't leave that organization until you die. Once you join, you are forever a Turk. But now I get the honor of making one of my experiments real. At your expense though." He laughed a cold laugh as he took a vile from his pocket.

"One vile of Chaos genes, and you're ready to go." He said, shivering with anticipation as he dipped a needle into the vile.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

(Thirty-some-odd years later)

Vincent held Hojo by the collar of his lab coat, his red eyes blazing with hatred.

"You thought that you could control me? Well... You're wrong." Vincent said quietly, drawing a handgun from under his cloak.

Hojo gave a barking rasp of a laugh, which got him slammed up against the wall with astounding force by Vincent.

"What's so funny little man? Or is it fear I see in your eyes?"

"I fear you not Vincent... You're nothing but an experiment gone wrong... Nothing more." Hojo wheezed as Vincent's grip tightened on his throat.

Vincent gave an unsympathetic laugh, his eyes fixed on Hojo's.

"I have one question for you, before I send your blackened soul to hell... What would possess you to ruin someone's life?" Vincent asked, trying to hold back urge to just snap Hojo's neck right then and there.

"Just for the joy of hurting them, and for my curiosity... I did it because I wanted to Vincent."

Vincent had had enough of the man that was dangling two feet off the ground now, and stuck his gun into Hojo's gut.

"Suffer." Vincent said, pulling the trigger and releasing a single searing bullet into Hojo's intestines.

Hojo gasped from pain, and slumped to the floor when Vincent let go of him.

As the stomach acid from his wound flooded into his body, Hojo lay on the ground, laughing hysterically.

"This is only a small portion of the hell that you put me through... And I'll enjoy watching you quiver in pain at my feet until death makes you cold."

Hojo continued laughing, even as the pain coursed through him like molten lava. About five minutes later, his breath was too ragged to continue laughing, but he tried nonetheless. Vincent stared at the dying scientist, his face unreadable behind his cloak's collar, his shaking hands the only indication of the anger and hatred he was feeling.

Hojo knew he would be dead soon, and took a deep breath.

"You're... nothing but... a... monster." He gasped out, his eyes locked on Vincent's.

"You're the monster, but you won't get punished for your crimes... Death was too good for you, you're just running from your real punishment." Vincent spat, and turned, leaving the tower lab without a second glance back.

**I stand alone inside**

**I stand alone (stand alone, stand alone).**

Vincent was all alone in his world, his mansion in Nibelheim, the only place free of judgment and fear. He hid himself away from the world, afraid of his powers, afraid of his anger, the anger that ate at his very core. The hatred that burned him like scalding ashes that consumed him like a giant conflagration, seared his mind and destroyed what little sanity he held onto desperately. He was alone, save for the occasional teen that ventured into the house on a dare, but he was too busy lying in his coffin, steeping in his sorrow and hiding from the truth. Pain, and his desperate need to atone for unknown sins are what kept him from seeing the sun for almost thirty years. But in all the darkness, all the empty air, Vincent finally came to himself, regaining his sanity, even though he kept himself in his coffin. He swore that he would kill the man that did this to him, swore that when he had paid for his sins, he would destroy the man who hurt him.

**You're always hiding behind your so-called Goddess**

**So what you don't think that we can see your face**

**Resurrected back before the final fallen**

**I'll never rest until I can make my own way**

**I'm not afraid of fading**

Even as Vincent worked for the Turks, he wasn't sure he liked the new assistant scientist, the man named Hojo.

Something about that man struck Vincent as evil, something he didn't understand so much as feel. There was something just plain wrong with Hojo, he did whatever it took to get what he wanted. He disregarded ethics, doing evil things to humans and animals like, 'in the name of science', and he didn't care if they lived or died.

Hojo's first major experiment was Vincent, whom he used because he felt he was disillusioning Lucrescia, and making her doubt the work he was doing. And so, after shooting Vincent, and leaving him to die, Hojo continued his projects. But he didn't know that Lucrescia had taken Vincent's body away, to heal him. She fused him with stagnant Lifestream healing him instantly, but transforming him into Chaos. She then took the 'Protomateria' and stuck it in his body to control the beast. So in a way, he was resurrected, brought back as a new person, with strange powers.

Then Vincent fell in love with Lucrescia, all things began to change. Hojo had struck 'scientific gold' when he found the JENOVA project that was started by Professor Gast. This lead to his new project, and thus the tyrant reign of JENOVA began.

Vincent finally had the courage to tell Lucrescia his feelings for her, but she told him that it could never work, and that she was in love with Hojo. Vincent was devastated. Then Lucrescia became pregnant, and to Vincent's great dismay, it was Hojo's and he was planning something evil for the baby. By injecting Lucrescia's womb with JENOVA cells, he would begin the most terrible experiment he had ever done, at the expense of Lucrescia's life and the sanity of his son. With that, Hojo hid behind Lucrescia's death, and the birth of the most destructive being to ever be created.

So he sealed himself away, never being able to come to peace with his mind and unable to sleep, he slowly began to fade. He wasn't sad that he was fading; one could even have thought him happy for it. He was finally paying for not stopping Hojo, for not saving Lucrescia from him. It was what kept Vincent from breaking entirely.

**I stand alone**

**Feeling your sting down inside of me**

**I'm not dieing for it**

**I stand alone**

**Everything that I believe is fading**

**I stand alone inside**

**I stand alone (stand alone, stand alone)**

Then one day he was rescued from himself, but the memories of his life still haunted him like a specter, biting at the back of his mind like a wolf does a deer it just killed. A group of people, lead by a strange blonde man came to his home, searching for answers. They found his basement sanctuary, and had opened his coffin.

"Who are you?" He had asked the startled group, looking up at them from his casket.

The man had introduced himself as Cloud. They spoke for a while and then Cloud mentions Sephiroth.

"You know Sephiroth?" Vincent had demanded, looking at Cloud with shock.

"Yes… And sadly he isn't like the man I used to look up to anymore… He has committed many atrocities, killing entire villages of people and then burning the towns down, as well as many other things."

Guilt flowed through Vincent as he heard this and his eyes clouded. He couldn't hear this, and so he fled back into his coffin.

But Cloud, undeterred by the odd behavior of Vincent, knocked on his coffin again.

"Come out… I haven't told you everything." He said, hoping that the strange man would come back out because judging from his reaction, he knew something about Sephiroth.

After much discussion, Vincent fled back to his coffin leaving Cloud and the others no choice but to give up on him, and so they left. He was alone again.

"_But… No. I'll go with them. I might finally be able to get my revenge on Hojo if I join them._" He leapt out of his coffin and ran to meet them.

"I'll go. I have someone I need to find, so can I come with you?"

Cloud regarded Vincent for a moment and then nodded yes.

He was no longer alone.

But even so, the pain of what had happened to Lucrescia because he hadn't stopped Hojo was sharp and persistent.

"_I can't let this drag me down any longer. I will kill him in the end._"

**Now it's my time (now it's my time)**

**It's my time to dream (it's my time to dream)**

**Dream of the skies (dream of the skies)**

**Make me believe that this place isn't plagued by the poison in me**

**Help me decide if my fire will burn out before you can breath**

**Breath into me**

It was his time; finally it had come. His dream of killing the man that had destroyed thirty years of his life, his love, and his humanity. He was just a monster, but he found a young ninja looking up at him with a smile on his face.

"Hiya Vinny! What'cha doing?" She asked her head cocked to the side, a smile planted on her lips.

"Don't call me that… My name is Vincent."

"Sorry mister grumpy-pants, I didn't know this was glum and dourness day." She replied, the grin still gracing her lips.

There was something about this girl… Something that made Vincent feel warm… feel… normal. The others in the group still had slight hesitation in speaking to him; all save for the ninja and the fire-cat. They both sought him out to speak with him, made a point to greet him when they saw him. It was strange to him, but he didn't seem to mind.

And now, at the present, Vincent sat with the ninja on his lap, smiling despite himself. She had made him realize that his life wasn't completely poisoned by his past; she had breathed a new life into him… she had given him something he had never thought he would have again… Love. It was the most magnificent feeling he had had in a while, and she was the soul reason for his new outlook on life. He thanked her for always being there for him, even in the darkest hours of his new life, and that was all that mattered to him.

This was a short story of the life of Vincent Valentine, a man who both lost and found love in his lifetime.

The End.


End file.
